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Monday, February 16, 2015

Funnily enough, I've developed Weeklie so well (for my liking) that I think I'm going to stop posting here. Perhaps at some point in time in the future, I will migrate the data or whatnot. But if you would like to find out what's happening to me, then either ask me or ... maybe I'll have to integrate a share feature on Weeklie. I don't know it depends on how many people end up using it.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Since I only have about 3 days left, I need to start hustling. I might finally take the plunge with digital ocean, or work on the landing page. Hmm, not sure which one is more important.

In any case, I have decided to move my posts to my test Weeklie deployment for now. I'll simply copy and paste everything over here. Tonight after I write my evening reply I'll paste it over here.

I will run in the morning, and also complete the landing page for Weeklie. I should also finish reading the book I checked out from the library yesterday. And hopefully tonight I can get to bed before 9pm if possible. So in summary:

Run

Finish landing page for Weeklie

Read book

Sleep before 9pm

Well I did all those things except for sleeping before 9pm. I also didn't finish the book, but I did read a decent amount of it. As for Weeklie, well I finally did a soft-launch of the site. I don't know what's going to happen, and frankly I don't care. Just remember: make a lot of pots.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Today I was quite productive. I read several chapters from the book and completed not only the daily entry portion of Weeklie, but also the Evaluations part. Tomorrow morning, I'll have to think about what I can do. I'll probably be sleep deprived if I don't sleep soon though, good night!

Friday, February 13, 2015

Today, I want to have the routing done so that I could get the dashboard substantially finished. If I have time, I'd also like a basic working template for the entry page as well. Most importantly, I need to sleep sooner tonight.

Evening Review:
Well that certainly wasn't too hard. I also took out a book from the library and will be spending some time reading it. It's about living an interesting life.

I am leaving San Francisco! Not much to do today since it's just a transit day. I do need to setup my plan for the upcoming week. I only have one goal this week:

Finish Weeklie

I also had another goal: to finish one of the short novels I have on my computer. But I'll let that be a secondary goal. Finishing Weeklie should keep me busy enough. I also need to plan my next trip. My life in the past several months have been so incredibly rich. I cannot imagine any other way to live.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

This is evaluation day. Although I didn't actually do much in terms of programming this week, I think it's important to talk about what I did in other aspects. As to my last week's goals:

Complete the design of Weeklie

Understand the situation and make a decision on whether or not to move to San Francisco

I've completed them on schedule. The final design for Weeklie in this first iteration is well underway, and pretty much a frozen concept from here on out. As for the move to San Francisco, I think we've also found out that there wouldn't be a right fit with my friend's startup. This is great, because it solves two of my biggest headaches I had 7 days ago.

I spent the first few days in San Francisco at my friend's house, not going out simply because I did not have a data plan on my phone and not even a paper map. I also had no idea how to take transit, so the whole idea was quite scary to me. However, on the fourth day since my arrival, I finally had the courage to do some reading online and step outside into the fray. What came about was excitement, adventure, learning, bliss, and friendship.

I thought there would be no way that I could get around and enjoy the sights without the internet or a map, but I was wrong. I thought that it would be scary and I would get lost and that I could possibly wander off into a bad place and never come back. Of course, none of this happened. When you throw yourself into the unknown, you find out that you were much more powerful than you gave yourself credit for and you wonder why you didn't do it sooner. I ended up making friends with a girl travelling from Korea, and saw some of the most beautiful sights this world had to offer. I discovered foods and interesting characters native to this geographical region, and felt immersed in the culture itself.

I also discovered a new perspective which led me to my decision to drop my articling contract and not take the bar exam at all. I was at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, taking in the scenery and I described the following to my friend:

I walked onto the sand, took off my shoes, sat down on a log and just put my pen to the paper of my notebook without inhibition. The warm mist of the ocean spray released me from the firm grips of perfectionism and I just let my thoughts flow onto the paper. It was overwhelmingly cathartic.

It was there that I realized that the past 10 months held within it so many lessons, so rich, and so colourful that it was pricelessly valuable. If this was the case, why would I spend the next 10 months on something that will largely be miserable and not contribute much to my future goals at all? The only positive aspect of that option would be mere social proof which I don't think will be very useful, given my aspirations.

Put in another way, the next 10 months can yield just as much excitement, learning, and positive effects as the last 10 months. To give that up would be a grave mistake. Is it scary? Yes. Will it disappoint my parents? Yes. Will it push me to perform and deliver in a way that I otherwise would not? Yes. Will I be happy? A million times yes.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Travelling is great. Today I met someone from Korea just by sitting randomly at a table with an empty seat at an In-and-Out. It's always good to just get out of your comfort zone. Not having data is actually kinda exciting, if a little bit scary. However, it's quite nice nevertheless.

Monday, February 9, 2015

I must be at the helm of my ship, even if it's a rickety raft made from scrap pieces of wood and cardboard. I'd rather ride that ship into the storm than as 4th in command on a vessel weighing thousands of tons.

The question now remains, should I still do my 10-month work contract? Or get to work immediately? I'll ponder on these questions while I spend my final days here in San Francisco.

Make a decision for SF
Today I met up with a friend who had a business idea. I think I can see myself taking his idea and expertise farther. But it has to be serious. It cannot be a simple idea to talk about. I've already created a Facebook group so hopefully we can develop this further.

Talking more and more with the startup guys is great. I get more ideas and understanding about startups in general. I am not sure if I want to move to SF, but this trip has definitely been a good learning experience.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Make a decision about whether or not to drop everything and move here.
Well today was a long day of travel. I learned a lot about what my friends are doing here in San Francisco. I have a lot to think about.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Weekly Goals
- Vision for Weeklie
- San Francisco decision
And this is the beginning of a new day. I struggled very hard to get up at 6:45am this morning, but it was necessary. But more accurately, I guess I should say that I struggled to sleep at a reasonable time. That's the real cause, but it's a cycle that needs to be interrupted.

Today was simply tying loose ends for the San Francisco trip. Not too much going on here, although I think I did eat and spend a little too much on food today. I need to make sure to keep an eye on that. Tomorrow's post will be written in San Francisco!

Weekly Goals
- Vision for Weeklie
- San Francisco decision
My entire day was de-railed today. I woke up to find my car having been hit while parked on the street overnight. Of course luck would have it that there was no note left on my windshield or any attempt at giving me contact information. I had to make almost an hour of phone calls to various people to get this sorted out. It totally killed my mood and my plans for the day.

These things will happen...

Things are not gonna work out exactly right, for a time they will, sometimes, but that's when life is just playing a game with you. Anything that can happen, will happen. But during those down moments, that's when the work takes place. The real challenge of growth comes when you get knocked down. You have to be resilient.

I can let it destroy my life, or I can build upon it. It's not going to be easy, but if you're serious you'll go all out. Forgive, and grow.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

This week has been a very interesting week indeed. I realized that there are limits to a lot of things, and I need to recognize how to work around them to achieve my goals. Unfortunately, I was not able to achieve a lot of the goals I set for myself.

Failures
The failures I have endured this week include the following:

Not waking up in the morning - I have not been able to wake up in the morning for the last 5 days or so because I was initially feeling sick, and then I let one thing lead to another and fell off the horse completely.

Frustrating development progress - I was not able to finish and launch the website I had in mind within the 7 days I gave myself. I spent so many hours on it just to get it to a semi-working state. And I am not happy with it at all, not in the least bit.

These two things are my biggest worries and failures this week and they absolutely crushed my spirit. So today I decided to relax a bit and take a nice hike in the woods. Even though it was raining, I knew I needed it if I wanted to keep sane. After I came out of the woods, I felt a lot better and as a result I am now typing my weekly evaluation.

Realizations

I realized a few things:

Not all is lost - I may not have been able to wake up in the morning for the last few days, but that's okay. Wake up tomorrow. You can't win all the time, you'll fail and see a lack of progress at least once in your journey to your goals. None of that matters, as they say "wins and losses are a dime a dozen", it's the effort and ability to dust yourself off and get back on the horse that matters. Never give up. The bigger mistake would be to look at the failure and pain and give up now. When you're at the bottom, when there's seemingly no way out, it's the ones who still persist and experiment that'll eventually discover a stronger self within them.

Have a clear vision - I spent so much time trying to code haphazardly. I found out that I didn't even have a clear vision for what I want the final product to look like. So what ended up happening was that I would build a page, and then another, and then another simply based off of what I thought seemed to make sense. I was making stuff up as I go along, and that was not very productive. There's certainly something to be said for iterative design, but you need to have a vision going in, or else you're not really building anything at all. It's simply like to trying to build a sandcastle by flinging sand everywhere. You need to at least have an idea of what kinda buckets to use.

What I will do about it

It's not enough to simply recognize my failures and where I need improvement. I need to find a way to improve myself going forward. Next week is going to be quite busy because of my trip to San Francisco, but no matter. A plan is a plan is a plan is a plan. It's always better to have one than none at all. I can't try to shirk my responsibility just because something is out of the ordinary.

Plan Days 36 - 42

I'll still be in San Francisco by the time I get back, so most of my goals will likely be related to the trip itself.

Complete the design of Weeklie

Understand the situation and make a decision on whether or not to move to San Francisco

I'm trying to put more time into the creative vision for Weeklie. I am quite certain there is potential in it, I just need to make sure I am able to picture it in my head (or on paper). I know that if I can picture it, I can make it happen. But I need to picture it first.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Copy and paste every week's goals into the top of each daily blog post

Easy and done

Observe b4yougo.net and continue releasing it and following already released channels

Build a login/accounts system into the boilerplate

I have since turned this into the weeklie project itself

Whiteboard discipline

Plot out the first few hours of my day on the whiteboard every night

I must write down the actual TIME I would go and do my run

Do NOT sleep past 10pm

Failed

Think about how to use sites like niice or http://designspiration.net/ to create a Spotify or TV-like service

I want to be able to glance at these pretty things when I'm bored, kinda like having a TV in the background

I want to do this to develop taste, because I don't really use Instagram as much as a lot of other people do

Spec:

Allow user registration and login

Allow email verification

On first view of dashboard, force initial setup

Set weekly goal,

Note the date of weekly evaluation

Allow making entry for today

When user gets to the weekly evaluation date specified by the weekly goal, alert the user:

To do a weekly evaluation

To set goals for next week (because current weekly goals has expired)

All I need to do is to complete this spec today.

Unfortunately, I am currently experiencing burn-out. I don't know what it is, but I am not happy with how the site is structured. I am very tempted to re-do the entire thing. I'll have to do some soul-searching tomorrow morning.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Copy and paste every week's goals into the top of each daily blog post

Easy and done

Observe b4yougo.net and continue releasing it and following already released channels

Build a login/accounts system into the boilerplate

I have since turned this into the weeklie project itself

Whiteboard discipline

Plot out the first few hours of my day on the whiteboard every night

I must write down the actual TIME I would go and do my run

Do NOT sleep past 10pm

Failed

Think about how to use sites like niice or http://designspiration.net/ to create a Spotify or TV-like service

I want to be able to glance at these pretty things when I'm bored, kinda like having a TV in the background

I want to do this to develop taste, because I don't really use Instagram as much as a lot of other people do

Yesterday's goals:

Build a function that can pull the relevant weekly goals from the DB

Prompt the user that it's time to set a new weekly goal

Maybe add an expiry date to the weekly goals

If I have time, include a weekly evaluation form for the weekly goals

Other features:

Adding tags to the daily tasks or goals

Making a nice report page, or a blog-style output

I will see how far I can get with this.

Evening review.

Throughout the last month or so of development, I often found myself adding a ton of side features as I go along because it seems so easy and accessible since it's right in front of you as you are developing the core features. This is a serious danger because I'd say that at least 50% of my time is wasted on this instead of completing the core features. I need to remind myself that the core features are the MOST important and these side features (easy as they may be), will remain easy to implement later on as well.

As a result, I've developed a much better strategy. And that is to initially develop a spec. In other words, develop a use-case work flow and implement the system that allows it to happen. For example, my spec (that I developed today) in this case was:

Allow user registration and login

Allow email verification

On first view of dashboard, force initial setup

Set weekly goal,

Note the date of weekly evaluation

Allow making entry for today

When user gets to the weekly evaluation date specified by the weekly goal, alert the user:

To do a weekly evaluation

To set goals for next week (because current weekly goals has expired)

This is a much better way of building things because you stick to the core of what you wan to build and are not easily sidetracked. You can also see above that I've crossed out certain aspects that I have already completed.

Unfortunately I fell ill. So progress will have to be slowed significantly. Nevertheless, I am still on track for an alpha release this Wednesday.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Copy and paste every week's goals into the top of each daily blog post

Easy and done

Whiteboard discipline

Plot out the first few hours of my day on the whiteboard every night

I must write down the actual TIME I would go and do my run

Do NOT sleep past 10pm

Failed

Think about how to use sites like niice or http://designspiration.net/ to create a Spotify or TV-like service

I want to be able to glance at these pretty things when I'm bored, kinda like having a TV in the background

I want to do this to develop taste, because I don't really use Instagram as much as a lot of other people do

Observe b4yougo.net and continue releasing it and following already released channels

Build a login/accounts system into the boilerplate

I have since turned this into the weeklie project itself

So today I am planning to work more on the site. The goal today is to finish the following two features:

Setting weekly goals

Creating daily entries

Not necessarily all of the connected functionality must be there, but by the end of the day we should have a form for the user to fill out and the data must be saved to the database.

So it seems that I was able to do all that. This is good, but there are so many other little things I have to deal with. On the face of it, it may seem like a simple app, but it is not simple at all. Nevertheless, I feel like I made good progress today. I will continue to work on this, since I have only 3 days until the Beta launch.

What's great is that I already have 2 of my friends agreeing to be beta-testers. For tomorrow, I really need to finish the weekly goals feature. And that means:

Copy and paste every week's goals into the top of each daily blog post

Whiteboard discipline

Plot out the first few hours of my day on the whiteboard every night

I must write down the actual TIME I would go and do my run

Do NOT sleep past 10pm

Think about how to use sites like niice or http://designspiration.net/ to create a Spotify or TV-like service

I want to be able to glance at these pretty things when I'm bored, kinda like having a TV in the background

I want to do this to develop taste, because I don't really use Instagram as much as a lot of other people do

Observe b4yougo.net and continue releasing it and following already released channels

Build a login/accounts system into the boilerplate

This is the goal for today:

Get accounts working

Done.

Well after a lot of prying, I finally got the accounts system to work. I'm pretty happy that it's now behind me, but I still need to work on getting the e-mail verification to work I believe. Should I bother with it? hmmm.

The e-mail verification was too much for me today. However, I have decided to just press on with the more important aspects of the webapp. I am sleeping very late today because of some socializing. This is allowable, but I should make sure that it doesn't happen too often.